A city without music

Thursday

Feb 14, 2013 at 6:00 AMFeb 14, 2013 at 7:37 AM

By Victor D. Infante TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Looking out the window from my kitchen Friday, watching the snowstorm bear down on the city, watching the empty interstate in the distance, which even in the dead of night is usually peppered by a smattering of headlights going wherever one goes at that hour, it was hard not to be struck by the silence that had fallen on the city, the sense of quiet that seemed to permeate everything. And it was hard not to be struck by a strange realization.

For one brief moment, Worcester was a city without music.

You’d think that would happen more often, but still … even on Christmas, you can find people in churches raising their voices in song. But with the snow, and the travel ban, there was no live music to be had, anywhere in the city, and if there were, no safe way to get to it. No church choirs, no classic rock bar bands, no indie hipster kids playing in minor keys, no blues musicians haunting the corner of dimly lit bars, no surprise jam sessions at The Dive Bar, no jazz singers at Nick’s. Nothing.

There’s a lot to recommend silence, of course. It’s something that’s absolutely necessary from time to time, to reflect and take stock of life, to heal and to think. But there’s also something lonely about it, even when you know it’s a loneliness that’s being shared. For me, at least, silence is something I need to seek out. I’m not as happy when it’s imposed on me, even by Mother Nature.

Thankfully, though, I was lucky and still had both power and my Internet connection. Setting my iPod to random, as is my habit, I was greeted with Erin McKeown’s “White City,” which struck me as almost ironic as the snow obscured the view from the window. “In our white city/ Of domes and girders/ We can fall but/ The fall won’t hurt us.”

A strange, poetic moment in the silence. I couldn’t help but laugh.

We’ve always turned to music to ward off the uncomfortable quiet, whether it be families gathering around the piano, or simply singing together. That’s almost a lost intimacy. These days, we mostly gather in public places to hear music communally, or listen to recorded music in the privacy of our homes.

I took to Facebook and idly asked what other people in the area were listening to at right that moment. The responses were varied, and unpredictable: “Go Home,” by Barenaked Ladies answered one; Diana Krall’s “The Best Is Yet To Come,” said another. One woman responded that her wife was listening to Julie London’s “I’m In the Mood For Love” while she was cooking, and another answered “Gay Bar,” by Electric Six.

Someone was listening to Peter, Paul & Mary’s “My Dog Blue.” Someone else was listening to “Classical Gas” by Mason Williams. And there was even somebody listening to Monty Python’s “Every Sperm is Sacred.”

One guy just replied that he was listening to “silence and wind,” and it seems, for him, the encroaching quiet was well-timed, and not something to be kept at bay.

For the rest of us, there was the recourse of technology, and the songs we love, and keep close to ward off the darkness.